I'll try to keep this quick.
Prepping to run a sandbox campaign in Eberron (I disregard the Pundit's opinion of the setting). Keeping most of my notes system neutral in case 5e doesn't work out long term.
Focus is on the foreign quarter of Dar Jin, a city in a formerly closed empire (Riedra) that's only just starting to allow foreigners into very restricted areas. Lots of espionage, culture clashes, fancy digs.
Going for a very James Bond / Noble House / Casablanca vibe.
BUT, I want a megadungeon because I think having one handy is good for the players. They always have that standby to explore if they don't like their other options for the session. Plus, it's a good starting point for the newbies I want to introduce to the game or something easy to do with players who have unreliable schedules but want to get in the occasional game without having to keep up with the larger intrigue plots.
Trouble is, I think I've painted myself into a corner. The foreign quarter is closely watched and the rest of the country is off-limits to foreigners, so there's no convenient wilderness boundary zone to trek through to get to a dungeon. Even if there was, the paranoia of this control-freak empire would soon have agents tailing the PCs, finding the mega-dungeon, and declaring war on it themselves.
I'm trying to fit the dungeon under the streets of the foreign quarter, or more precisely inside a hill in the northern district that spreads under the wall and into about a mile of barren shore beyond (cut off from the rest of the country), but there's still the spy factor and the fact that a megadungeon under a major city would be an even higher priority for the control-freak empire!
I'm mulling over some possible solutions, but I could use some advice:
Perhaps the empire already cleared out old some old smuggler tunnels, figured the job was done and sealed most of the access points. This was a major and costly operation they don't care to repeat again. But they forgot at least one entry point that is then discovered by the players.
In the meantime, gradually monsters started bubbling up from the underworld, repopulating the sealed smuggler areas. They then dug new tunnels and linked formerly unrelated water systems and spaces that were missed by the government sweep.
While some of the governments agents are aware that the megadungeon is flourishing again, their superiors just don't have the manpower to spare and are planning to deal with it later. Any spies watching the players will then been instructed to report back only if their actions endanger the government, otherwise they are just doing the empire a favor by clearing out beasties.
I still don't like it much; it makes the ominous empire look weak.
Your thoughts?
Catacombs a la Paris?
I would just assume that the Empire sees the megadungeon as the garbage disposal of things. They have political prisoners toss them in the mega dungeon, oh the potential spies wandered in. good riddance one less group to worry about.
now when they start showing up again then it might get interesting, How in the heck did they survive?
would make it interesting.
Eh, I didn't read anywhere that you have to agree with everything Pundit says to post here. I have fond memories of Eberron myself.
Maybe the entrances are shielded from psionics (possibly due to daelkir influence or being a prison for daelkir) and thus invisible or unreachable to the Inspired?
The nice thing about the game is that you can play the moment of chaos between something happening, and the empire finding out.
Remember the last shot of the movie "From Dusk till Dawn"? The camera pans back and it is revealed that the bar/stripper joint is built on top of a huge pyramid structure. You could use something like that. Unbeknownst to anyone part of your city is on top of an ancient pre-human structure. Then someone dug too deep...
One of those TSR modules from the 80's, B4: The Lost City, might be useful to you:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lost_City_%28Dungeons_%26_Dragons%29 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lost_City_%28Dungeons_%26_Dragons%29)
There could be a cultural taboo that limits what the empire is willng to do with the dungeon, or perhaps an epic curse affects native born folks and prevents them from seeing the dungeon which worked really well during the times if total xenophobia.
Or perhaps a secret faction of the empire has a vested interest in keeping knowledge of activities in the dungeon on the down low. Perhaps they have their own exploration effort, or have already established a base in the dungeon. Or maybe the faction are actually infiltrators from the dungeon.
There are also the underground cities in Cappadocia/Turkey - http://www.cappadociaturkey.net/undergroundcities.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derinkuyu_Underground_City
http://thetravelbunny.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/derinkuyu_map.jpg
- ancient catacombs à Paris or Rome
- sewer systems and/or well shafts... that have accidentally connected to something that better shouldn't be disturbed, or have been breached by burrowing dungeon dwellers
- buried undertown
- graveyard tombs breached by tunneling ghouls... and where they came from, there may be more whacky dungeon levels. What if the ghouls did actually *flee* surface-wards from something nastier?
I like these answers from Roger G-S: Why's There A Dungeon Under Your City? (http://rolesrules.blogspot.com/2010/12/whys-there-dungeon-under-your-city.html)
I like your avatar Barbatruc.
I think many of you have misunderstood the dilemma I have.
The questions are not "Why is there a dungeon under the city?" or "What is the dungeon under the city?"
The questions are "Why hasn't the very organized and powerful dictatorship already cleaned it up?" and "What's to stop the dictatorship from cleaning it up themselves the moment their competent spies notice what the PCs are doing?"
The point of a megadungeon is that it can be visited multiple times and is so big it can never be fully explored/cleared and so the PCs always have it as a session choice. The city and country I have selected make this approach difficult, but I've already generated a lot of material for it and I don't want to relocate.
Why are there still piracy, drug trafficking, crime, slums or poverty in our world of governments that have much greater resources at their disposal than any medieval government could ever dream of? Because it is about issues that won't ever be solved.
If orcs or goblins or whatever sprout from cthonic ooze like fungi, there may never be a "final solution" to the evil humanoid problem.
If evil humanoids are just people like you and me but with an evil bent, they may be too well organized and dezentralized - some sort of subterranean Viet-Kong or Taliban evading and picking off government patrols.
If the monsters come from another place below the dungeon (Hell Gate, Hollow Earth, whatever) that is too well defended to be rushed by the humans, but neither can muster the numbers to do a full-out offense, you may have a Cold War Stand-Off situation where clashes are limited to minor border skirmishes.
In the end, it may be more efficient for the government to keep the problem from spreading to where the tax payers are by occassionally sweeping level 1 of the dungeon, and to leave the dangerous parts to themselves.
Quote from: Shipyard Locked;784259The questions are not "Why is there a dungeon under the city?" or "What is the dungeon under the city?"
The questions are "Why hasn't the very organized and powerful dictatorship already cleaned it up?" and "What's to stop the dictatorship from cleaning it up themselves the moment their competent spies notice what the PCs are doing?"
Re-examine your questions. Instead of the above, how about "What use could a powerful dictatorship have for a megadungeon under their city?"
If you want a cold war feeling, then the answer is intelligence gathering. With some kind of observation of the goings on in the megadungeon, the powerful dictatorship can gain knowledge of heroes capabilities and tactics - thus giving them an edge.
For a James Bond superweapon feeling, the megadungeon could house a monstrous army of undead or a pet Tarrasque waiting to be unleashed on the world.
Quote from: Shipyard Locked;784259The questions are "Why hasn't the very organized and powerful dictatorship already cleaned it up?" and "What's to stop the dictatorship from cleaning it up themselves the moment their competent spies notice what the PCs are doing?"
The point of a megadungeon is that it can be visited multiple times and is so big it can never be fully explored/cleared and so the PCs always have it as a session choice. The city and country I have selected make this approach difficult, but I've already generated a lot of material for it and I don't want to relocate.
I posted the moment of chaos, but also, how are they going to clear it out? Underground fortifications are very successful, and even still used in modern times like Tora Bora.
Given the influence far realm creatures have had in that region you could go for something simple that somehow got warped by the influences of that realm last time it was co-terminus with eberron, lots of aberations and warped creatures living in the remnants of the undercity(maybe a few political prisoners were "hidden" there aswell) unable to reach the surface city because of powerful anti psionic wards and "other" protections.
The heroes somehow finding a way in could set off alarm bells for the authorities which would further ramp up your other campaign plots.
Another idea is that the aberrations in the dungeon made a deal with the inspired. Not make trouble and "take care" of delinquents and being left alone in turn.
Both sides being what they are, a conflict would just not be worth it for either side.
Quote from: Shipyard Locked;784259The questions are "Why hasn't the very organized and powerful dictatorship already cleaned it up?" and "What's to stop the dictatorship from cleaning it up themselves the moment their competent spies notice what the PCs are doing?"
Perhaps the dictatorship rules at the pleasure of those below. So long as the government feeds the dungeon fresh victims its masters allow them to rule the surface.
If too many "victims" make undo amounts of trouble for those below then the powers that be will put pressure on the surface government to take care of the problem....
The PCs if they are too successful in the dungeons below, could find themselves hunted by both the dark masters below AND the dictator of the city above. ;)
Maybe it's too much trouble to explore the dungeon.
Are they causing any problems outside? If not, then it is effectively a ghetto, with all the inhabitants trapped inside.
Perhaps there are useful people in there, they can't be allowed to wander around outside, but could provide some services.
If the dungeon is vast, perhaps the authorities don't appreciate how large and complex it is. This might be true where several complexes have been merged into one. Perhaps a set of catacombs, a set of mines, old sewers, part of the city ruined by an earthquake and built over, fugitives burrowing into the hill and natural caverns. Join them up with a set of tunnels and you now have a massive complex where before there were a few odds and ends.
5 minutes of brainstormed reasons why access to and/or knowledge of the megadungeon is limited:
- The MD has a controlling intellect a la Undermountain who is selective about who comes in (and out!) of his/hers/its creation.
- Ancient wards that do a "soul check" at access points; only 3rd level or higher sentient beings are allowed in.
- Anyone can come in; a sacrifice of gold or gems or a specific key is required to exit.
- It's a mythic underworld: http://muleabides.wordpress.com/2013/09/16/logic-and-the-mythic-underworld/
- The MD is an extrusion of Hell into the Prime (or whatever terms fit your cosmology, I'm only passably familiar with Eberron). The laws of physics and metaphysics don't necessarily apply (see Queen of the Demonweb Pits for an early take on extraplanar rules alterations).
- A melange of some or all of the above- each level or sublevel has it's own raison d'etre; PCs not only have to map the dungeon but keep track of how each portion deviates from the world above.
You may also look at the Crepitus Caves (http://jaggedalliance.wikia.com/wiki/Crepitus) in Jagged Alliance 2. Over there, the draconic dictatorship has actually been the one to bioengineer the monsters in the first place, and keeps the crepitus plague docile by throwing the bodies of the dead, the dissidents and the traitors down the bug hole. Things turn ugly when the feeding stops and the menace crawls to the surface looking for food...
Crib from Stonehell: the dungeon is a mad experiment being run by a major member of the government, or at least started that way.
Quote from: Shipyard Locked;784214I still don't like it much; it makes the ominous empire look weak.
There's your rationale. The ominous empire can't deal with it effectively (either it's too big, or too well-defended, or something) and knows that, and can't afford to let that become widely known lest the empire appear weak in the eyes of its enemies. Further, different factions within the empire disagree on what to do about it, from clearing it out whatever the cost, to using it as a tool, to walling it off and forgetting about it, and this internal dissension is preventing anything from being done.
So the empire itself will act to conceal anything the PCs do down there and the PCs now have factions within the empire they can exploit.
I'm thinking the Balrog(etc) is at the bottom. The empire knows this, but discovered it well after the city was considered a success. They know they can't relocate the whole city. They also cannot possibly hope to kill the thing, and the last time they tried - well let's leave it at 'it was bad'. They also know the 'Thing Down There' needs to eat someone, and allowing a 'buffer of scum' to build up actually protects the citizens - so long as all the bad stays down below.
Sort of a Cabin in the Woods deal...
It introduces a thin veneer where you get to decide who is in the know and who is not. I'm picturing a middle commander who wants the place cleansed but his superiors keep blocking him below a certain depth.
Thanks everyone!